As a Baptist pastor, I’m sure you can imagine my trepidation at beginning a conversation recently with a woman who carefully chose those five words as both her personal introduction and avenue into conversation.

When presented with such a confrontational approach, there are two options: Defensively counter with why Baptists are clearly great and wonderful people, or simply ask why she feels that way.

I chose the latter.

“I don’t much like Baptists,” she repeated. “I’m an American, from the South, and we have a lot of Baptists down home. They don’t seem to care much about others, and they certainly don’t do things like this.”

As context is everything, let me share with you where this encounter took place.

The “things like this” my new confrontational friend mentioned was a fundraising dinner for a Syrian refugee family I hope will be making Niagara Falls their home in the immediate future.

This visiting American had read a story in this paper about how three Niagara Falls churches - St. John Anglican, Holy Trinity Anglican and First Baptist - had come together to sponsor a family of five Syrians, and she said she felt led to purchase a ticket to the dinner.

She also felt led to share some of her problems with Baptists and the church in general.

Some of her criticisms were spot-on, but some weren’t. I agreed where she was correct and offered another perspective for her to consider where we disagreed.

As I had time to reflect on our interaction, I was reminded of a passage from the second chapter of the Book of James. James, Jesus’s brother, was commenting on the very hypocrisy that this woman had so easily picked up on, and been rightly disgusted by.

James writes in verses 16 and 17 that if we say to people to go in peace, keep warm and well fed but do nothing to help their physical needs, what good is that?

He adds that faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, well, that faith is dead.

Earlier in that chapter, James speaks to the motivation for this faith in action, and he identifies it as love; specifically, loving our neighbours as ourselves.

By the end of our brief conversation, this lady and I had proven both James’s words and a recent axiom are true: In the end, love wins.

It was the love of God that brought three different congregations together to serve five people they had never met. It was the love of one Syrian sister in Niagara for another on the other side of the world that erased any doubt that three churches may have had and prompted us to dig deep to help out.

It was the love and grace of God, through his church, that made the evening possible and it was the love of one woman for people in need that brought her to the banquet hall that night, although she’s still unsure of the value of the church.

As we made our way to the silent auction table, she offered an altered version of her opening remark.

“I don’t much like Baptists … but y’all seem to be OK.”

It was a small victory over a good meal at a great event, and I’ll take that any day.

Rev. Brad Peters is the pastor of First Baptist Church Niagara Falls, 3900 Dorchester Rd. and serves as chaplain for the Niagara Falls Fire Department. You can contact him at 905-354-7836 or bpeters12@cogeco.ca.